The Opelousas courier., 1887-01-29
T
An Interesting Glimpse Of the
Turkish Capital.
Its Superb Site and squallid Streets
Palace Gardens and Slave Market.

- r SSS SAA S41Al41o Au1VOEDR
Palace Gardens and Slave Market.
Constantinople, even without that
political environment which exercises
such a fascination upon those who enter
it, is a city Of unnumbcred attractions,
writes a correspondent. The many
writers have yielded to the temptation
of contrasting its superb beauty, as seen
from the Bosphorus, with the dirt and
squalor of its streets, full of dust and
bowling dogs. But the dirt has been
exaggerated the beggars are not more
numerous than in Vienna, and the dogs,
despite their wolfsh appearance, are
harmless enough and seem to be dimin-
ishing in numbers. The main street of
Pera, the European quarter is not likely
to impress strangers who have come
from Marseillcs with the recollection of
the Boulevard de la Republique still
fresh in their minds; but its shops,
cafes and embassy palaces offer a fine
show to the traveller who arrives from
the Balkan States or from Russia.
Streets full of European houses, tram
way cars, the Galata tunnel, with its
underground stations, the gardens of
the Petite Champs, where there is an
open-air cafe with music, French play
bills on the walls, the familiar advertise
ments of Loudon and Paris firms which
have branch houses here-all testify to
the undermining influence which have
invaded the place.
Yet the new has simply grated itself
upon the old, without any material al
t~eration of the latter, so that a passage
from Europe to Asia may be realized in
going from one street to another. The
broad avenue which skirts the palace of
Dolma Baghtche has, Notwithstanding
its trees, cabs and tram-ways, no resem-
blance to an European boulevard.
Nowhere in the west have palace gar
dens such tremendous walls, and there
are miles of these walls running along the
side streets, up hill aud down, the whole
length of the Bosphorus shore to
Therapla. Every prince and pasha seems
to live in a prison Of his own making.
There is not an outward sign that any of
these huge residential stronghold are
inhabited.
The rare windows which face toward
the streets are grated; but ever if you
are steaming over the Bosphorus, and
survey the hundreds and hundreds of
windows of palaces that look over the
water, you will scarcely perceive a living
creature standing at airy one of them.
The grinding taxation of centuries has
served to build these mansions, and
what amount of treasure they contain
nobody can guess. 1t is we'll to beware
of the common little bit Of cant which
represents the modern Pasha as being the
decorous husband of one wife and the
father of daughters who study German
and play the piano.
The slave market of Stamboui is not
extinct, though its operations have to be
conducted on the sly, like those of
betting agencies in England. Those
colossal walls with th0isss .. Hinp
ner fringing of oaks, sycamoresalizel
poplars, over which not even the
muezzin from the hight of his minarct
can pecp-those walls tell no tales, and
what little is known of the myst ries
within them, through the gossip of
Greek doctors or discharged servants,
tends rather to show that the only in
noyations which the civilized Pasha has
introduced into bis haremilk consist of
french wines, novels and millinery.
However, that part of the house in
which q rich Turk receives male visitors
is undoubtedly modernized. The walls
are hungwith pictures and portraits of
e essabfdiERidaan ne T J9sE hfat yod Cigarettes IN:
stead of a chibouk. The chibonkji, or
servant, whose exclusive business it was
to attend the pipes with amber and
iewelled mouthpieces,i is almost absolete,
and if you listen creduloBsly to a Pasha
he will softly persuade you that all sorts
of other extravagances are now things
of the past. The Pasha Of to-day reads
the French reviews and talks about
progress like a lecturer at the Mechanics
Institute. But possibly when you have
turned yonr back he winks with the eye
and washes his hands of you like an
Oriental Mr.. Jaggers as-he is.
Elephants Gt Sea.
The hosting into the air and lowering
elephants into The hold Of q ship is no
80 49, &L.~A